Digging out

The snow ended mid morning Monday, and this was the view from where I’m sitting now. Final total was about 20 inches. NOAA undercalled it just a bit.

Note the small blurry bird on the feeder. Even as the snow was still falling, horizontally at times, the usual FFF (finch feeding frenzy) carried on, especially after the squirrels knocked down the ‘squirrel-proof’ feeder. It’s an ingenious design — the outer cage is spring-loaded, so the weight of the raiding rodent covers the seed ports. It doesn’t work, though, if the blasted scavengers figure out how to knock it down into the snow, scattering sunflower seed everywhere. Oh well — at least its fall was cushioned by the snow.

How do birds know a storm is coming? Do they feel the falling atmospheric pressure, or can they sense a shift in the planet’s electromagnetic field? Whatever the cause, by Sunday afternoon, well before the snow started, I had already filled the small tube feeders once and spread seed on all the flat places, and had to do it all again before dark.

But yesterday the sun shone, the roads are (mostly) clear, and the CBC has been rescheduled for Thursday, when the weather is supposed to be even nicer! Until then, enjoy some pre-blizzard birds!

28 species. Bluebirds and Buntings were sighted along Shaver Road, and the last 3 were (unsurprisingly) in a parking lot. One Pileated was working the dead trees in the swamp, and the second was hammering up the hill, invisible but audible.